


Living With the Side Effects

by Mistress_of_Squirrels



Series: Wasteland Wanderings  - Kinkmeme Prompts [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Not Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 00:05:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5764189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistress_of_Squirrels/pseuds/Mistress_of_Squirrels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially when it means living without the one who made you whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living With the Side Effects

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from the fallout kink meme : http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/6855.html?thread=16933575#t16933575

_“What's not to love about immortality?”_

He remembers when he first said the words to her, the way they slid from his glib tongue with a confidence he hadn't yet realized was false. Hancock wasn't a fool; he was aware of the toll outliving nearly everyone around you could take. There were too many ghouls living in Goodneighbor, thin shoulders bowed beneath the weight of a former life, withered faces lined with sorrow as much as radiation, to simply ignore that the consequences of his choice were more than just physical. Even so, he'd decided, and for over a decade, had no regrets. The ability to tolerate his own reflection had seemed a fair trade.

After...there hadn't been a plan for after, mostly because he hadn't thought there would _be_ an after. Hancock preferred living in the moment to planning for a hazy future that he was almost certain he'd never live to see, 'immortality' or not. One didn't rise to power in the wake of a coup and not expect to fall the same way. He'd done the best he could with what he had, and he was damn proud of what he and Fahrenheit had accomplished with Goodneighbor. He couldn't undo what had happened in Diamond City, he couldn't take back the damage Vic and his boys had caused while he stood by, but he could give the rejects of the Commonwealth a place to call home, make sure another innocent wasn't going to bleed out on the filthy streets. Not in _his_ town. And after...after just wasn't that important.

Until _she_ walked through his gate, and he saw just what after could look like.

His ray of sunlight in an otherwise desolate world soaked in blood and the dull haze of too many chems. She brought out the best in him, piece by hidden piece until he had no other choice but to accept that he and the man she saw in him were one and the same. It was difficult - terrifying, if he were honest with himself - to live up to that image; the kind of fear that had sent him running more than once in his past. But his past was just that, or so she did her best to convince him, and there was nowhere to run anymore. No amount of fear could feel worse than leaving her side.

In the end, it was she that left him.

Cancer, a form similar to the one that would have claimed the life of her son had she and the Railroad not intervened. It was a much cleaner death than the bastard deserved, in hindsight. She didn't get the mercy of a quick, painless end. No, she _lingered_ , until hearing that last rasping breath echo in the stillness of her sickroom was as much a balm as it was a knife twisting in his heart.

Eighteen years, they had, seeming at once an eternity and over far too soon. That odd dichotomy of time would only persist as the years rolled by and familiar faces slipped away one by one. Maybe it's the chems that cause him to wax poetic, but he can't help but compare them to dimming stars, though none shone as brightly as hers.

He ignores the sympathy that clouds Amari's eyes as she readies the pod, and absolutely hates the pity that flashes in those of her successor, but he grits his teeth and bears it, just for another glimpse of _her_.

It's her smiles that he misses the most, and unless otherwise directed, those are the memories they know to reach for first. Her mouth was always her best feature, though she had scoffed at the notion. A bit wide for her face, but so damn expressive. He loved that, that peek inside the woman that was otherwise a closed book. She tried so hard to conceal what she was feeling, but her mouth gave it all away. A sudden quirk of her lips told him that she found his stupid jokes amusing, as much as she'd tried to deny it. The hard, flat line of her mouth spoke of exhaustion and pain she'd have rather kept hidden. That curling, almost feral grin that showed too many teeth meant that some raider was about to have a really bad day.

Her smiles were something else entirely. Tentative and sweet at first, they grew into something so bright it dazzled, like the sun breaking from beneath the clouds. They were the reason he'd called her his sunshine, and his world was so much darker for their absence.

These sessions at the Memory Den were as addictive as any chem he'd ever tried, and like any other drug, the high was over much too soon, leaving him emptier than before. It'd be so easy to lose himself here, to bask endlessly in her light, even if it was just an echo of the real thing cradled within the confines of his own mind.

Here, he could see her as she was, whole, before the ravages of disease left her gasping and hollow. Better, he could feel her here. The gentle warmth of her hand as it cupped the ruin of his cheek, the soft press of her lips against his before they formed around the shape of his name. He could reach out and feel the flutter of her pulse in her throat, still rapid as they rested in the after glow. He could hear the hoarseness in her whisper as she pressed her mouth to his ear, _“I love you, John. So fucking much,”_ and know that she meant every word with her entire being. He could watch her smile one of those breathtaking smiles and pretend, at least for a little while, that losing her hadn't rent the very fabric of his soul.

He could stay there forever, or at least until time finally caught up with him, lost in visions of her, and he probably would have, were it not for another, more painful memory that was never far off. He needed no help recalling this one; it had been seared into his brain.

Her eyes were too bright from fever, her face too thin, but her hand clutched at his with a strength that bordered on desperation.

_“You've worked too hard for this, John, too hard for them. Promise me you won't throw all that away. Goodneighbor still needs you.”_

Her voice had been little more than a weak rasp, but her words bounced around in his head with the magnitude of a gunshot. Even now, after so many years, he could deny her nothing, even if it tore him apart from the inside out.

“Yeah, love. I promise.”

And so, with a heavy sigh, he pulled himself from the pod and left the Den, heading out into the darkened streets of Goodneighbor. A passing drifter called out a greeting and Hancock returned it with a curt nod. The drifter's name tickled at his memory, but flitted away before he could grab hold. Guilt stabbed at him, but its prick was fleeting. There was a time when he knew the name of every citizen here, but that was long ago, before he realized nameless faces were easier to forget. They had so little time, and he had nothing but.

_One of the perks of immortality._


End file.
